“Not just what I feel but what I knowAnd how I know it, my unscholarliness,My rawness, all rise out of the cobbledLandscape I was born to.Those of you raised similarly,I want to say: this is nota detriment and it is not a benefit…”—from “My Education,” Volume 63, Issue 2 (Summer 2022) Tell . . .
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A few years ago, I placed my younger self into a poem dreaming of a potato-chip-flavored kiss. All-American kisses occured in lives where candy bars andsleeping with your hair wet were also permitted, where the attention of Americanmothers cast soft glowe through the house and clicked off at night.—from “Ars Poetica,” Volume . . .
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The living room is crowned by a painting, one that has no purpose other than to take precedence over the armchairs. In the scene there are two deer, grazing on a sparse, dry plain: everything is yellow, from the animals to the meadow to a shadeless sky at high noon. There is . . .
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If I write myself into a state, does that make the state false? In the background of one of the many pictures I take of Patrycja by the feeding ring,two of the horses bit each other. Without violence, how do I understand my life as meaningful?—from “Eastern Washington Diptych,” Volume . . .
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Photo by Ally Almore O taxi glass, O broken fall, be soprano, be alto.Give me sea sharp, give doh doh doh, give mi fa so?O gravity, slip soft. Lay with this sorry child before they soulsplint & ugly up this here garden.—from “The Lion Tamer’s Daughter vs. The Ledge,” Volume 63, Issue 1 . . .
Read MoreEmerita MR Poetry editors Ellen Doré Watson and Deb Gorlin selected Robert Whitehead’s “David” from Spring 2021 (Vol. 62, Issue 1), for our annual Anne Halley Prize for Poetry. From the judge’s note: “By retelling the story of the fabled hero, the breathless narrator of Whitehead’s inspirational, of-the-moment poem, exhorts us to . . .
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Toxic relationships abound in Cherish Farrah, but the rub is not knowing which relationship to watch out for. Bethany C. Morrow’s second novel for adults addresses classism and racism, as well as families and friendships. It’s a slow burn from page one and ends in discomfort for all. Like Mem, Morrow’s first novel, Cherish Farrah is . . .
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The 2022 winner of the Anne Halley Poetry Prize is Robert Whitehead, for his poem “David” (Volume 62, Issue 1). ROBERT WHITEHEAD received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, and has been a fellow at the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets, Ashbery Home School, and the Vermont Studio Center. His . . .
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After Sophie’s love affairs had all gone sour, her life became a drought. Once full of lust and beauty, Sophie was now faded and dried, like a stalk of corn left too long in the sun. She drifted through the days at the tiny Denver packing and mailing shop where she workd, . . .
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Today I am beyond outraged and I can’t breathe. Palestinians the world over are weeping and mourning the loss of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Her brutal murder by Israeli Defense Forces, with a bullet to the face while clearly wearing a PRESS vest, shook me to the core. Dedicating her life . . .
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